Measuring Public Innovation in Europe. The STARPIN Methodology

The contribution is based on the StarPIN project – Statistical Reporting on Public Innovation– carried out for Eurostat by the Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy, with the support of Dialogic of the Netherlands. A theoretical and a methodological framework is proposed for enriching the measurement ability of public sector innovation, and the implications for data collection and analysis are discussed. A preliminary test of the framework is carried out by means of pilot applications to specific public services. The paper focuses on public service innovation as a key locus of value creation for society, choosing an object-based rather than the more commonly adopted subject-based approach. Issues concerning the measurement of public service innovation are addressed in statistical terms and consistently with the official public sector functions classifications. A particular emphasis is placed on web scraping to capture the technological level of websites used by public administrations, and to evaluate the degree of innovativeness of specific services within selected public functions. Data collected through web scraping are combined with administrative data at the level of individual services. Based on pilot applications to specific public services in a limited number of countries, the paper draws the lines for an extension of applications to potentially all public service domains and all EU member states.